Are You Sitting Yourself to Death?

Your body is designed to be in motion. Unfortunately, if you are like most Americans, you spend most of your day sitting. The average American adult spends 9 – 10 hours sitting every single day, and that amount of downtime comes with some serious risks. Too much sitting contributes to health problems that kill countless people each year, and it is worse for your health than smoking.

Are you sitting yourself to death? Let’s take a closer look at some of the consequences of too much sitting.

Damage to Your Organs

Whether you spend most of your day sitting at your desk, behind the wheel or in front of the television, you are doing serious damage to your internal organs. Sitting slows your blood flow and reduces the amount of fat your muscles burn. This allows fatty acids to build up in your heart and makes you more likely to develop cardiovascular disease.

When you are inactive, your pancreas also produces too much insulin, increasing your risk of diabetes. If you spend at least 8 hours per day sitting, your risk of developing type 2 diabetes increases by as much as 90%.

Too much inactivity even increases your risk of developing several types of cancer, including breast, uterine, endometrial, colon and lung cancer.

Posture Problems

When you’re sitting, your posture probably isn’t the best. Sitting at your desk or cradling a phone to your ear causes you to hold your neck and head in a forward position, causing a condition known as forward head posture. This often leads to serious upper back, neck and shoulder pain.

Too much sitting is also a major cause of back pain. When you sit, there is significantly more pressure on your spine than when you stand. This compresses the discs in your spine and prevents them from properly absorbing the nutrients they need.

Decreased Lifespan

If you spend your entire day sitting, you could literally be sitting yourself to death. Research indicates that spending several hours sitting each day decreases your lifespan. Every hour you spend sitting after the age of 25 decreases your life expectancy by up to 22 minutes. If you want to live a long, healthy life, you need to get up and move as frequently as possible.

Too much sitting puts you at serious risk for a number of health problems and even premature death. Be sure to check back for our next blog post in which we will discuss some of the ways you can decrease your risk.